The latest on California politics and government

March 2, 2013

While serving as a state senator, Michael Rubio also was a business partner with a Kern County oil executive who contributed to his campaign and loaned him money to buy a home in El Dorado Hills, newly released state records show.

Rubio, a Shafter Democrat who resigned weeks ago to work for Chevron, was a partner with Majid Mojibi in a Bakersfield-based real estate investment firm, M&R Investment Group, the records show.

The partnership participated in two real estate deals in 2012 - one involving ownership and operation of a Bakersfield office building, the other involving agricultural land.

Rubio said he received no income from the venture. The partnership apparently received loans of six-figure sums from Mojibi, however. On the FPPC disclosure form Rubio listed an "over $100,000 loan" for each of the two real estate ventures.

As a senator, Rubio's income was $95,291 last year, plus roughly $25,000 to $30,000 in per diem for living expenses in Sacramento. His wife earned income of between $10,000 and $100,000 as a dental hygienist last year, records show.

State law does not prohibit legislators from working second jobs or participating in investment partnerships, but it requires disclosure. Rubio and other state elected officials complied with that mandate Friday.

Rubio's FPPC disclosure statement separately listed a transaction, detailed in The Bee Thursday, in which the senator received a loan from Mojibi's DCM Asset Management to buy an El Dorado Hills home.

The state does not require disclosure of the precise amount that Rubio borrowed to buy the $681,000 home, which is 4,660 square feet and has four fireplaces and a swimming pool.

Rubio's newly filed disclosure statement said the loan was for a "personal residence' and was for six months, at 6 percent interest, and for an amount "over $100,000." The FPPC does not require specificity.

Rubio told The Bee that Mojibi provided the loan after a bank had turned him down for a conventional mortgage. Two months later, still unable to get a conventional loan, he gave the house to Mojibi and is now renting it, he said.

Previously, DCM Assets Management, registered to Mojibi, had purchased a Bakersfield home that Rubio had to put up for a short sale in 2011. The company paid $185,000 for the two-bedroom house, records show.

Rubio had to move from that home during his 2010 campaign, after it was discovered that the property was not in the 16th Senate District he was seeking to represent. Local election officials had mistakenly included the address in the wrong Senate district.

Rubio said the company bought his former house for another Mojibi family member after the home, which he acquired for $270,000 in 2004, was put on the market through a real estate agent.

The former senator told The Bee last week that the Mojibis and their interests, which contributed $14,697 to Rubio's Senate campaign, received no special treatment from his office.

Rubio resigned his Senate post weeks ago, with nearly two years remaining in his first term. He said that joining Chevron would allow him to focus more on his family, which includes a young daughter who receives treatment for Down syndrome.

* Updated at 10 a.m. to say that Rubio is an East Bakersfield Democrat.